
Okay, I don’t know what that is, or how I did it, but I know I like it.

Okay, I don’t know what that is, or how I did it, but I know I like it.

Okay, it’s just a photo of the Taj Mahal, run through a filter that makes it look like a charcoal drawing, but, because I painted in funny colors in Photoshop first, it does lead to some strange effects.

Oh yeah… that, my friends, is what happens when you use a ‘neon’ filter on a photo of the Taj Mahal that you already added funky colors to in Photoshop.

Oh yeah, when you add some color to the Taj Mahal, and then use a filter to make it a negative image… and it comes out positively positive!

There is my daughter, Mollie, on the right, holding little Olivia. Mollie graduated from high school. Olivia hasn’t started school yet.

Well, we all knew I was going to throw a random selfie in here somewhere, right?

So these are the last photos from Mollie’s graduation party, organized by her older sister.

I saved most of the Olivia pictures for the last post… because I love that kid… I mean, obviously, I love my own kids too. But two-year-olds are just so awesome. There is Olivia’s dad, Joey, lurking in the background… like dads do. He is going to be the father of new twins very soon… so I am going to get more babysitting jobs. HA! He is also a friend of my wife’s, from when they grew up in San Diego together.

Okay, here is why kids are awesome when they are two. Because everything is magical, but it also makes sense, because it is what they see. Adults can’t accept magic and reality simultaneously. They think everything is either/or.

But watch a two-year-old play with helium balloons. Flying balloons. That is magical, but it must be real, because they can see them.

All their lives, they have watched gravity make anything they let go of cause that thing to drop to the ground. Now, all of a sudden, gravity don’t mean doodely-squat.

But they totally roll with it… as long as there is someone around who is tall enough to get the balloons back down off the ceiling. Magic and reality.

I do miss when my daughters were that age, and I was a stay-at-home-dad… before it was cool to be one.

I love that my older daughter threw a party that was tropical-themed… because it let me get all my tikis out…

Yes, there is… uh… okay, I don’t have a name for that one… but I love it.

That is the ‘having a bad day’ tiki…

Happy Buddha tiki!

There is my crazy. Pop-eyed Coyote tiki.

He is hanging out below ‘Angry Elvis’ tiki.

There is the tiki that is going to look exactly like me… when I finish him… me…

He… I… am hanging out with some of my… our… friends.

Yes, there were yard-flamingos too… don’t judge us…

I think I will start calling him ‘Slim’.

I call that one ‘Popeye’… I like the gold tooth.

Scary Mouth and the Friendly Ghost!

Halloween Totem, Eagle Totem, and Easter Island Head… by my awesome Fire God fire pit… I didn’t make that, it was a Father’s Day gift.

It was also a chance to get out the ‘Cornhole’… (Google it)… game boards… which I made for my older daughter’s wedding just a while ago. The great thing is that the initials are the same for my daughter and my new son-in-law, so that’s cool.

And we played the Giant Jenga game I made for the wedding too.

Yeah… if the Taj Mahal was made of rubber, painted in funny colors, and you were on LSD.

It looks even more fanciful as a painting!